As most of you are aware, last year Central’s board created a Vision Implementation Team (VIT) to help us live into our next phase of life as a congregation. Since May this team has led us in research and brainstorming about opportunities for ministry. We’ve also done a lot of listening in the congregation and in our neighborhood.

I want to share with you in the next couple of issues some of the things that the VIT is learning and also some of the pilot projects that are coming up. But first allow me to tell you what I see in you, dear congregation, from my perspective as pastor.

I see a community of people with a wide diversity of background, life experience, and perspective.

I see a community that is beginning to understand itself as part of the neighborhood around us, expanding our notion of who makes up “our community.”

I see a congregation that is becoming less focused on people becoming members of Central and more concerned about how many lives we are impacting.

I see people struggling (in the positive sense of the word) with the balance between freedom and constraint, between spontaneity and structure. We want to uncover and nourish and amplify the passions for mission that people bring as individuals, and we also want to strengthen our organization as a vehicle for finding common ground and sustaining our work both practically and spiritually.

I see the work of the VIT moving us toward a better understanding of ourselves and those around us, and giving us the opportunity and encouragement to experiment with new ways of being in ministry.

It is a challenging and exciting time to be in ministry in downtown Indianapolis, and I thank God for the opportunity to be in this with you!

Central Christian Church is a member of the Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.